thought of the day.333

Beautiful thoughts about struggle and joy by my insightful sister,
Sandy Fish.

‘till you find your dream’….
10.4.09

Oh my our lives are hard and we can wonder, ‘what have I done to deserve such a fate’…’why me?’ ‘the only luck I have is bad luck, or I’d have no luck at all’….and again and again, thumping our chests with our question and crying out in our psyches, ‘why ME?!’…..

Spend a day at the grocery store and you’ll get your answer. There could be a chorus from every single customer, ‘help! Why me!‘ ‘Why us?!’ That’s more like it, Why US?….struggle, bad legs, humped backs, big bodies, frail ones, toothless, broken inside and out….single, married big large small tiny…..

Standing at the cookie demo cart for four hours I get to watch this human spectacle of us….I watch as the grocery shelves are scoured by these creatures who after a few hours all look like either descendants of birds or monkeys… foraging for food….we have to…we have to go and get food no matter how depressed or heartbroke or body bent we are….

I watch.

I cry. I do…I hold back tears at the bravery of most people. Their struggles are too much for me….at once I am grateful for my own struggles, they are what I barely handle….but these….I can almost smell the sofa on some of the pale soft bodies who have dragged themselves to the store to get food….and when I call out for them to try a cookie or ask how they are….they smile, they do, they smile! In spite of the flat tire, the broken tooth, the traffic ticket, the stolen purse, the transmission and the goddam computer crashing, they smile and say they are fine. A woman is hunched over making her way….so many seem to lumber or limp and in others you see the stress of it all on their faces as they frown at the different eggs or butter they must choose in spite of the divorce, the death, the disappointments, the disappointments, disappointments…..

This is our lot. I see that. We dress up our broken beleaguered bodies, pull a red sweater, clean and fresh, over the hump….place a bright pin on our collar buttoned up on the aging neck that has seen deaths by now of loved ones, the teens in new sneakers or shiny belts dressing up the aches, fears, manic gladnesses that turn at a text into sadnesses….the eyes twinkle after they bite a cookie, they raise it up, ‘these are good!’….there are sweet moments.

It is mostly struggle. That is our plight. It just simply is. And why have we been fed some notion of attaining comfort? That, that is some attainable goal? That, there is some comfy destiny some reach. I don’t believe it! It’s a lie! It is! I watch. I watch and watch and watch….. I see the huge burdens, physical or emotional….I see it…I smell it, I feel it….and I am impressed.

And I want to know, not how to attain comfort or riches-- things that are but a glamour…a glimmer of glamour of smoke and mirrors, illusion….but to know the struggle….to embrace that fact with maybe a wince but not a whine, not a why me, not a poor me…..but Me! We! I am here because I am struggling, therefore I know- I Am. No, no, not I THINK Therefore I am, I STRUGGLE Therefore I Am; I am, I am very much alive and there, aha, it is, the twinkle, the smile, the grandness of all who can do it….and say, “I’m Fine”….

The glory that we are not shiny photos in magazines, not popping out in high def luxury….not cruising in cars with painted smiles 24/7 being what is called prettiness….that is not alive and as far as I can tell and see when I watch for hours all of us….being alive is the goal…….living

The disappointments come from the lie. To try to believe a lie is to be weighted in a constant inert fog of disappointment….

There is substance in….working in the cold or lugging heavy things up and down hills in the heat; to have sore feet and not enough money, to feel lonely or inadequate or crowded and nervous, sick or sore, exhausted, frustrated. It brings, I suppose most would say, a ridiculous, smile to me….yet it is the finest sweetest lightest kind of joy…..because to feel these things, to be involved in the battle against the elements whether outside of us or inside of us or on our very bodies….is to share the burden of our humanness… and shared burdens are lighter….there now… that’s true… and so my struggle becomes my comfort giving me the knowledge that ‘I am’, one of us, which brings a joy that makes me smile and say, ‘I’m Fine!”

~ Sandy Fish